Automatic version consolidation
Automatic consolidation of a backup is enabled by setting the overall limitations for the backup. These limitations include:
- a maximum number of backup versions
- a maximum storage period for the backup files
- a maximum backup size
Automatic backup version consolidation is available only for the incremental and differential methods of the custom backup version scheme.
By default there are no limits set and automatic consolidation is not performed. To enable automatic consolidation, you must select at least one of the limits and either leave its default value or change it according to your needs.
If limits are set, then after creating a backup version the program checks the backup for quota violations, such as exceeding a pre-set maximum number of gigabytes set aside for backup versions and, if any limitation is exceeded, consolidates the oldest backup versions. For example, if you’ve pre-set your backup to store 50GB of backup files and your backup versions reach 55GB, you have exceeded a quota and the system will respond automatically based on rules that you’ve already set. This operation creates a temporary file and thus requires disk space. Consider also that the quota must be violated so that the program can detect the violation. Therefore, to be able to consolidate the files, the program needs some space on the disk in excess of the backup quota. The extra amount of space can be estimated as the size of the largest backup version in the backup.
In case of setting a limit on the number of backup versions, the actual number of versions can exceed the maximum number of versions by one. This enables the program to detect quota violation and start consolidation. Similarly, if you pre-set a backup version storage period, for example, 30 days, the program will start consolidation when the oldest backup version is stored for 31 days.